


String Enough to Show Our Face in the Light Again

by TheCatDemonofInk



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Comfort, Multi, references to drug abuse, soft fic, this was both written and beta-ed at 2am
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-14
Updated: 2019-07-14
Packaged: 2020-06-28 06:06:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19806283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheCatDemonofInk/pseuds/TheCatDemonofInk
Summary: On their first night back, the dark isn't very nice to either Ben or Klaus.But it's okay, they'll get through it together.





	String Enough to Show Our Face in the Light Again

“It’s okay. It’s really okay, we can sleep in our own rooms tonight. Can’t have old Reggie realising anything’s up after all.” Klaus shrugs, twirling in his night dress. He lightly pushes on Ben’s hand, stealing his jacket to put it around his shoulders. 

Ben isn’t fooled. Ben sees the way Klaus’ eyes widen and flicker to the side. He sees the way Klaus flinches at the shadows. He  _ knows _ that Klaus won’t get through the night without a nightmare, not now that they were back in their thirteen-year-old bodies, back in the good old mansion. Back in the place of a  _ good number  _ of Klaus’ nightmares. 

Ben had been there, ever since he had died. He had known that Klaus had nightmares (which of them didn’t?) But at thirteen, he didn’t know the true extent. That had been swiftly corrected the first time he watched Klaus fall asleep, as a ghost.

Klaus had moaned slightly, begging and twisting even as he slept on. Ben had been tempted to interfere but he wasn’t sure if touching Klaus would make it worse. Klaus had been begging and sobbing, telling beings that Ben couldn’t see that he couldn’t help them, praying that they didn’t hurt him. 

The nights on which the screams came were the worst. Klaus hated the fact that his screams drew attention, even as he sobbed and cried in his sleep, and tried to muffle them by placing pillows over his mouth as he slept. He stopped, after one time he OD-ed and the pillow prevented him from breathing, making recovery a pain in the ass, but he still hated the screaming.

Ben had coaxed the mausoleum story out of him, fragment by fragment, parsing together his incoherent post-nightmare ramblings. Sitting on his bed and comforting him as he woke up from his nightmare. Murmuring soft words of comfort, telling him that he was out, and he didn’t ever have to go back to the mausoleum, or even the house. Never that house again, not the place of so much of his childhood trauma.

( _ Ben hadn’t known that their father, their father’s funeral and all he ever did, would make him into a liar. _ )

Ben had watched his brother seek out all manner of drugs, any way to possibly get relief from the ghosts that surrounded him. He used to hate it, not understanding. But he knew better now. He knew that Klaus was a junkie, but he hadn’t known why.

He knew their siblings didn’t get it. He knew they called Klaus. Klaus knew it too, as much as he laughed it off. He knew they called him ‘junkie’, ‘disappointment’, ‘failure’, and ‘useless’. They both knew what their siblings said, given they hadn’t ever bothered to hide the disdain in their gaze and the sharpness of their words. 

( _Ben knew he had lied, that time when he had told Klaus Luther would do anything for him_. _He regretted it so much, hearing that sickening crack of Klaus’ skull splitting._ _But that was Klaus. He would go a hundred miles for people that wouldn’t move an inch for him and smile all the way._ )

Ben remembered the time, the first time, Klaus had overdosed, and the hospital had made the call to the Academy. He never told Klaus but he had been genuinely shocked when Luther had snapped and told them not to bother him about Klaus again. Ben had wanted to scream, wanted to march to the house and yell at Luther and tell him that Klaus had  _ died _ , and he couldn’t be  _ bothered _ to pick up the  _ damn _ phone. 

He never tells Klaus that. The slight fading of light from Klaus’ eyes when the nurses tell him they couldn’t contact his family is painful enough. Klaus smiles his playful manic smile at the nurses and shrugs with his whole body at them.

And now, they’re back.

They’re thirteen again, back to the age where Ben tried to survive by ignoring his pain and reading all the time. Back to the age when they still had training, still had constant trauma inflicted on them by Sir.    
  


Ben had been too much of a coward when his siblings had embraced him. When they later separated into their own rooms, and Allison had quietly reminded him when he headed towards Klaus’ room that he should be going to his own room. Ben had just nodded, wordless, and changed direction, saying goodnight to Allison. 

Vanya hadn’t woken up yet. He understood their worry. And he was scared that if he let himself speak too much he would say something indiscreet.

He was too used to indiscretions now, having been around Klaus for a decade. He needed to remember to keep his mouth shut again.

So that was how he ended up here, in front of Klaus’ door, knocking quietly in a way he hadn’t had to for years, asking to be let in. 

Klaus’ shrug is languid and appeared to betray the carefree, careless person he used to show the world. Klaus smiles and rejects his offer, showing off his flowery nightgown. Ben knows this room the same way he knows his from hours of sitting in it as a ghost. He knows the ghosts that come in the night.

If only ghosts were cognisant that they exceeded PG-13 ratings. Not that parental guidance would be provided to Klaus in any case. 

Ben wants to insist but Five’s insistence that they don’t change anything about the timeline resonates in his head. At that age, Ben and Klaus hadn’t been half as close as they were now, certainly not close enough to warrant sleeping in the same bed at night. 

Ben returns to his room, covering himself in his blanket and breathing in. The sensations of being alive hit him in the weirdest of ways. The pressure of the blanket and it’s texture. The pillow underneath his head. The sensation of air on his hands.

Ben tries to sleep. Granted, he first needs to remember how one goes about falling asleep, and he does stare at his ceiling for some time. What did sleep feel like again?

Ben closed his eyes, only to open them again when a soft knock was at his door. He calls for whoever it is to come in, as Klaus peeks his head around the door, the beginnings of tears in his eyes. Ben raises a questioning eyebrow, given Klaus’ insistence he was fine.

“Well, yeah, the  _ original _ plan was to sleep, but you know. The darkness sucked all the bravery out of my intestines.” Ben, used to Klaus’ odd way of phrasing, and patted the bed next to him.

Klaus pauses for a bit, before sliding in, wrapping his arms around Ben and tucking his head underneath his chin. Right, Klaus hadn’t had his growth spurt yet. He was still small now. Ben felt the monsters in him rumble in contentment. 

Ben wraps his arms around Ben and pulls him close so they were fully in contact, and Klaus responds by wrapping his legs in.

The darkness couldn’t take them both after all. 

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Twin Skeleton’s (Hotel in NYC) by Fall Out Boy


End file.
